No 7 is now officially No 1. On Wednesday night, Cristiano Ronaldo re-wrote the record books when he became the all-time leading goalscorer in footballing history.
The 35-year-old did so by hitting the back of the net against rivals Napoli in the Italian Super Cup final; a strike that smashed the famous record and almost added yet another club trophy to his vast collection as Juve went on to win 2-0.
That effort moved him above Josef Bican – with the Austrian-Czech striker scoring 759 goals between 1931 and 1955.
The Portugal captain now has 760 goals in his stunning career and Sportsmail has taken a look at the numbers behind the man.
With a swipe of his left foot in the Italian Super Cup final against Napoli, Cristiano Ronaldo became the highest scoring player in football history with 760 goals to his name
WHO HAS HE SCORED FOR?
Quite simply, arguably the biggest club teams in Portugal, England, Spain and Italy. Ronaldo started his career at Sporting Lisbon where he scored five times in 31 appearances there.
A move to Manchester United followed and a sublime six years at Old Trafford yielded 118 goals. His feats at the Red Devils saw a then world-record £80million move to Real Madrid, where he became the Spanish giants’ all-time record goalscorer (more on that later).
Ronaldo ended his nine-year reign in Spain in 2018 to join Juventus in a £100m transfer. To date he has 85 goals for Juve and that will only continue to expand.
Oh, and Ronaldo does it on the international level too. The forward is Portugal’s all-time goalscorer with 102 goals and counting as well.
Ronaldo’s career started at Sporting Libson, where he scored five goals in 31 appearances
During his six seasons in England, the Portuguese star scored 118 goals for Manchester United
SEVILLA SORROW
When it was announced in July 2018 that Ronaldo had left Real Madrid for Juventus, it left a hole in Spanish football. However, for Real’s rivals it would’ve been a sigh of relief and none more so than at Sevilla where Ronaldo tormented them during his nine-year stint.
Ronaldo scored 27 times against Sevilla – the most goals he has scored against a single opponent during an illustrious career so far. Breaking it down further, Ronaldo averaged more than a goal a game against the Andalusian side – with this figure being 1.5 goals-per-game – after notching 27 goals in 18 games. He scored 25 in LaLiga against Sevilla and two in the UEFA Super Cup.
Stunningly, Ronaldo only failed to notch against Sevilla in five games. However, he made up for this four hat-tricks, three braces and once scoring four times. Juventus haven’t faced Sevilla in Europe since Ronaldo’s move and no doubt they’re grateful for the luck of the draw.
It wasn’t just Sevilla that Ronaldo plundered goals in against. Atletico Madrid (25), Getafe (23), Celta Vigo and Barcelona (both 20) are all too accustomed to seeing him do his trademark celebration. This even extends to current club Juventus, who he scored 10 against before joining. They place joint-17th on this list alongside Tottenham – with Spurs his most conquered English team.
Ronaldo has scored 27 times in 18 games against Sevilla – averaging a goal every 1.5 games
BREAKDOWN OF HOW RONALDO SCORES
When you breakdown Ronaldo’s goalscoring numbers – they emphasise how complete a footballer he truly is.
His jaw-dropping tally isn’t just stacked by his favoured right foot. He scores six of every 10 goals with this body part, but almost two in 10 with his left and two in 10 with his head. One goal came off his elbow, against Athletic Bilbao in the 2014-15 season, and another rebounded in off his groin for Manchester United against West Ham in 2008.
Breaking it down further, he has scored 648 goals inside the penalty area and 112 outside of it – making him a threat from all angles.
Unsurprisingly the majority of his goals have come from open play – 570 of them, a stonking 75 per cent.
Penalties account for 18 per cent of his goals, while he has scored 57 from free-kicks.
He has scored 488 times with his right foot – averaging six goals in every 10 with this body part
HOME OR AWAY? IT DOESN’T MATTER
Following on from the above, home comforts don’t skew the numbers either. Only 54.02 per cent of his goals have been scored in home fixtures, while 40 per cent have come on the road.
Neutral grounds – international tournaments, cup finals – have accounted for 46 goals, a touch over five per cent.
He has scored 40 per cent of his goals away from home – showing he is not fazed by location
TIME IS JUST A CONCEPT
As well as the venue, it doesn’t matter how many minutes have gone in the match: you always have to be on your guard with Ronaldo.
The 35-year-old has an even spread for his 760 goals. Ninety two of them have come in the first 15 minutes of a match, while 122 and have come between the 16th and 30th minute.
Fifteen minutes either side of half-time and the Portuguese superstar has a near-identical clinical prowess – having scored 115 times between 31 and 45 minutes and 116 times between the 46th and 60th minute.
And as teams get tired, that’s when Ronaldo truly punishes them. He has 131 goals during the 61-75-minute period, while a staggering 178 goals in the final 15 minutes of the match. Against Sassuolo on Sunday he scored in injury time of Juve’s 3-1 Serie A home win.
Ronaldo is also there to score in extra time too. He has netted six times in this period during his career so far – including a stunning header for Real in their 1-0 win over eternal rivals Barcelona in the 2011 Copa del Rey final.
In the 2011 Copa del Rey final, Ronaldo scored in extra-time to see Real beat Barcelona 1-0
FIFTY AND COUNTING
Ronaldo scores goals. We get it. But during a period of sheer brilliance he scored over 50 of them in eight-straight seasons across all competitions for club and country. Not even his perennial rival Lionel Messi has achieved this feat (although his tallies are nothing to be sniffed at, of course).
Between the 2010-11 and 2017-18 seasons Ronaldo scored no fewer than 54 goals – with that ‘low’ (said tongue-in-cheek) figure occurring at the end of that run. At his ‘peak’ (again, tongue-in-cheek) he scored 69 goals for club and country during the 2011-12 campaign – inspiring Real to LaLiga glory.
During this eye-watering span, the iconic No 7 scored 60 goals more than three times in a season (2011-12, 2013-14 and 2014-15).
Last season he scored 48 times for Juventus and Portugal. We’re not even at the halfway stage of this term and he has 23 already.
Ronaldo scored a stunning 69 goals for club in country during 2011-12 as Real won LaLiga
RECORD-HOLDER RONALDO
We all know Ronaldo is now the world’s all-time goalscorer, but that is not the only record that he possesses as, unsurprisingly, this is an accumulation of other statistics he has shattered.
As mentioned earlier, Ronaldo is Real’s all-time top marksman with a jaw-dropping 450 goals in 438 games. That’s an average of more than one a game and a tally that is unlikely to be surpassed for a ridiculously long time at least. To put that record into context legendary striker Raul is second on the list with 323 goals but played 741 games – a ratio of a goal every 0.44 games.
Ronaldo is the greatest goalscorer in European club football’s elite competition too. The forward has 134 goals in the Champions League (excluding qualifying). He has 16 more than Messi (118 goals) with Raul, who is now retired, and Bayern striker Munich Robert Lewandowski a long way back in joint-third (71 goals apiece).
Ronaldo is Portugal’s captain and talisman. His importance to the the team has been underlined for years and the stats here back that. In March 2014, he became his country’s leading goalscorer – surpassing Pauleta’s then-record of 47 goals with a brace in a 5-1 win over Cameroon. Fast-forward to the present and, almost eight years later, he has more than doubled that as he sits on 102 goals for now.
Adding to his legend, at the 2018 World Cup Ronaldo scored his 85th goal for Portugal in a 1-0 win over Morocco to beat Hungary’s Ferenc Puskas as the all-time top scorer for a European national team.
Oh, and in September he became the first European player to rack up a century of goals for his country with his 100th and 101st strikes in a 2-0 Nations League win over Sweden.
Ronaldo reached 100 goals for Portugal in September when he scored twice against Sweden
